What prompted Napolitano trip to Houston? Could it be Texans’ resistance to immigration reform?

The White House is touting the bipartisan immigration reform package that the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” is completing behind Capitol Hill’s closed doors.

But bipartisanship does not extend to Texas, where exactly zero Republican members of the Texas congressional delegation have endorsed the approach of the bipartisan “Gang.”

More to the point, key Texas lawmakers have come out this week opposing any pathway to citizenship and promoting “security-only” solutions, throwing a serious wrench in the president’s high-priority push for immigration reform.

Sen. Ted Cruz announced this week that he doesn’t expect immigration reform to pass, and he will not support a part of reform that Obama said is not negotiable — a pathway to citizenship.

( J. Patric Schneider / For the Chronicle )

Cruz accused the Obama administration of using citizenship as a “poison pill” that would kill the bill. He says it’s all part of a White House calculation to give Democrats a political issue for 2014 and beyond rather than fixing a broken immigration system.

On Tuesday, Rep. Bill Flores, R-Bryan, spoke to constituents on the issue, equating a possible bipartisan plan to making a sandwich.

“I’m not sure you can do it all as one solution,” Flores said. “That’s like building a sandwich, and every time you build a sandwich you’re going to find people who don’t like the bread or pickles or whatever.”

Flores said he opposes amnesty for immigrants here illegally, and that a plan to strengthen the border needs to be a key part of the solution.

According to the Associated Press, the negative vibes have brought Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to Houston today to discuss “the need for commonsense immigration reform and underscore the administration’s efforts to secure the nation’s borders.”

Sen. John Cornyn responded to the announced trip with the following statement:

“Recent news reports noting wide gaps in security along the U.S.-Mexico border and scores of individuals crossing into the U.S. illegally continue to fly in the face of the Obama Administration’s insistence that our border is secure.

“Texans – and all Americans – would appreciate a healthy dose of reality from Secretary Napolitano. She should admit the border is far from secure and commit to implementing a clear metric to measure security, something her Department has not done since 2010 and continues to resist.”

(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Gov. Rick Perry took to Fox News, where he promoted the old-fashioned pathway to citizenship that is “there and has always been there.”

Immigrants, he said, need to “to get in line and pay your dues and to meet the requirements of citizenship.”
Perry also stressed the need to secure the border before addressing reform to ensure America is not a “revolving door”.

“If you’ve got a rotating, revolving door at the border, then it doesn’t matter what your immigration policy is. It will not be successful,” Perry said.